Of A Camping Trip Gone Wrong
by Anise Nalci
Summary: A camping trip is proposed by Wanda. Response to Ringtailer720's fic challenge. Rated for language.


Of A Camping Trip Gone Wrong   


* * *

It had been Wanda's idea to go camping for the weekend in the forests surrounding Walkerville, a prospect which everyone - even Arnold! - agreed. All eight of them - Arnold, Carlos, Dorothy Ann, Keesha, Phoebe, Ralphie, Tim and Wanda - were going to go into the nearby forests and just camp. They were to bring four tents, and there would be two people to a tent. Arnold would share with Tim, Carlos with Ralphie, Dorothy Ann with Wanda and Keesha would share with Phoebe. Phoebe secretly pitied Dorothy Ann, who'd be sharing a tent with Wanda; the two had characters so contrary to each other's. Dorothy Ann was bookish and happy reading, while Wanda, like Carlos and Ralphie, could never sit still, although where Carlos was naturally inquisitive, Wanda was adventurous and Ralphie tended to indulge in flights of fancy, although to be fair, it had been a long time since his imagination had been sparked by stories of vampires, werewolves and other mythical creatures in comic books. At any rate, Wanda would give Dorothy Ann no peace of mind.

Of course, it wasn't the fact that Wanda and Dorothy Ann made as partners that had ruined the whole camping trip for them. Actually, come to think of it, they'd been pretty decent and there had been no squabbles between the two of them - which was strange, but not as strange as what would happen. It had been Tim's fault to begin with. Very rarely was anything Tim's fault. He was so bland, such an observer, rather than a party involved, that he just seemed to flow along. This was the first time anything had been about Tim, not that it was a good thing.

Tim was supposed to bring the desert. His grandfather, after all, supplied honey, and Tim's parents were amazing chefs in the fancy hotel downtown (it was a five star, the only one in Walkerville). They'd just finished eating lunch (they'd started out in the morning and had already pitched in the tents near a waterfall which flowed into a large river, alongside a sheltered copse in the middle of the forest), and wanted to have desert before gathering wood for tonight. Tim, with a flourish, brought out fancy chocolate confections that had their mouths watering. Wanda, who had a sweet tooth, was the first to devour the first of the chocolate confections, but no sooner did it enter her mouth did she spit it out, much to Dorothy Ann's disgust.

"Eww, Tim, _what was that_?" She yelled. Tim, humiliated and taken aback by Wanda's venomous tone (and the fact she was spitting out and making faces, as if trying to get rid of the taste in her mouth), was stunned into silence, and barely managed to open his mouth before Wanda spoke yet again: "It tastes like cat. Chocolate covered - _Ralphie_, don't eat it!"

Too late did the warning come. Ralphie had already bitten into his desert, and his handsome face actually turned _green_. He looked like he was going to puke. "Watch out everyone!" Carlos warned. "He's going to -"

Ralphie dashed off, and they heard the sound of vomiting. That had put everyone off the dessert.

It was an full ten minutes before Ralphie came back, looking as green as ever, but still pretty much handsome.

"Oh my _God_, Ralphie, are you okay?" Phoebe dashed to his side.

"You can stop mothering him now," Wanda said airily, also moving towards him, as he stood near the tent, before reaching into Dorothy Ann's bag and taking out a small box - a first aid box.

"Hey! You didn't ask permission!" Dorothy Ann pouted, as Wanda took out a lozenge and gave it to Ralphie. "Here, Ralphie. Sit down first. Have a lozenge. Suck on that! It'll make you feel better."

Ralphie gratefully accepted the lozenge. However, Arnold's curiosity had been aroused. "Hey Wanda?" He began.

"What up, Arn?" She asked, leading Ralphie inside his tent. Ralphie's face was less green, but his hand was over his stomach. Dorothy Ann was even now reading up on the medical diagnostic book she had brought along, and with several _According to my research_ phrases, she finally concluded that if Ralphie did not have enough rest and nourishment, he could come down with a severe stomach virus. As she was saying to Carlos, "I wonder how it came to taste of _cat_. Tim's parents don't keep pets -" Arnold tried to gain enough courage to say: "How did you know that would make Ralphie feel better?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she said, resolutely.

"But Wanda -"

"_I don't want to talk about it_," she repeated, this time in a more hostile tone.

"But -"

Wanda, who was generally impatient by nature, frowned. "Say anything and I'll rip out your intestines with this spatula."

"But -" Arnold was about to say Wanda didn't have a spatula, when Wanda said to Phoebe, "Phoebe, can you get me my backpack and give it to me once I've put Ralphie to rest?"

Phoebe, always happy to be of help, obliged Wanda, as Wanda led Ralphie into the tent he shared with Tim. In a few minutes she came out, her hair a little unkempt, but none the worse fore wear. She seemed messier, but Arnold wanted to see what Wanda's next move was. She took her backpack from Phoebe, giving Phoebe an ungracious thank you, before brandishing a spatula. It was blunt, and Wanda was much shorter than Arnold, but together, the effect of seeing Wanda with a spatula was truly a frightening sight. It had occurred to Arnold more than once how someone so tiny could be so frightening.

"I'll say this for the _last time_, Arnold. I _don't_ want to talk about it. And if you really insist on asking, so help you God."

Arnold gulped, while Carlos tried to ease the tension by starting a lame joke along the lines of, "How many licks does it take to get to the centre of -?"

* * *

Wanda would not make a good nurse, everyone agreed. But everyone wanted to do their own thing, and no one really wanted to stay and take care of Ralphie, except for Phoebe and Dorothy Ann. The former wanted to because her mothering instincts were so overwhelmed and she felt a need to protect the helpless, hapless, sickly boy, the latter because she saw him as an opportunity to test her medical knowledge; not something the ill Ralphie relished, but being ill, he was unable to defend himself against Dorothy Ann and her legion of books. Eventually, however, Wanda came to Ralphie's rescue, and Dorothy Ann was replaced. Phoebe, being of a more gentle constitution, had retired earlier to her own tent to recover her spirits, although she would soon join the others.

In the meantime, Arnold was rock hunting by the waterfall, while Tim was drawing sketches of the waterfall and Carlos swam in the river shirtless. Keesha was sunbathing, having stripped down to a pair of hotpants hitched up so that it was like a bikini bottom and a tiny tube top, ignoring what she called idiocy on Carlos' part, as he kept trying to drench Tim's sketchbook, so that the silence was often broken by occasional yells and shrieks from Carlos' and Tim's part and punctuated by Keesha's constant comments on the stupidity of mankind, often uttering phrases along the lines of "Why is humanity so dumb?" Several times a phone rang, and the ring tone was distinctly Dorothy Ann's (it was some classical piece by Beethoven), and everyone near the river could overhear her conversation with her parents, which went on for about an hour and was along the lines of: "Yes, mom, I'll wear a sweater at night. No, mom, it's perfectly fine. _Mom_! Of course not! The boys are perfect gentlemen. _For crying out loud, I'm still a virgin_!"

That latter part was ignored by the rest. The last thing anyone wanted to know about was Dorothy Ann's sex life, or the lack thereof. It was after that phone call that Dorothy Ann turned off her phone. "That's it! I've had it with those phone calls!" She said disgustedly. She later joined Arnold, Carlos, Keesha and Tim by the river, and sighed. No one dared to talk to her about her conversation with her parents.

"Where's Phoebe?" Tim was playing it safe. He didn't want to get on Dorothy Ann's bad side, because as good-natured as she could be, her temper was of a somewhat volatile nature, and though she could never be considered a drama queen, she was prone to exaggeration and quick to anger.

"I think she was sleeping. She went off about thirty minutes ago. Don't worry though, I think Wanda's with him," Dorothy Ann added hastily.

"All right, _now _I'm worried. Wanda, nursing?" Keesha said, her eyebrows raised. Dorothy Ann nodded innocently.

("I bet she was on acid... or crack... or some other mind-altering drug. I mean, who in their right mind would let _Wanda_ nurse someone?" Tim said.

"Or maybe it was her mother," Carlos whispered gravely.)

Keesha wasn't done, though. "Do you want Ralphie to kamikaze on us?" She continued, as she immediately got up, forgetting she'd hitched her pants up so that it covered little more than a g-string bikini bottom, and everyone (the boys in particular) was able to make up a faint colourful mark right on her bottom. A red flower, and an elaborately marked _F_ on top.

"Er, Keesha, your butt is -"

"What, Tim?" Keesha snapped. Poor Tim was really in the doghouse. Never before had Keesha snapped at anyone other than Ralphie and Wanda.

Tim was spared from the necessity of answering the regal Keesha, when Carlos interjected, tactlessly, to be sure, with, "Erm, Keesha, I think he wants to know what we're all thinking: When did you get that tattoo on your butt?"

"Tattoo on my - oh (she swore). It's nothing."

And she went off into her own tent, not deigning to stay and answer the myriad of questions the boys had, including the one that was foremost in their thoughts -

_Why did she have a tattoo of the letter F on her butt?_

"I say it's because of Ms. Frizzle. Maybe she's a secret lesbian," Carlos suggested, after the pregnant pause.

Tim shook his head. "It's too far-fetched. We haven't spoken to Ms. Frizzle since we left for junior high."

"It's too far-fetched, it could be _right_," Carlos insisted, but it was obvious he didn't believe it himself.

"She's not a lesbian," Dorothy Ann stated in a matter-of-fact tone. "According to my research, there have been rumours backed up by substantial evidence that Keesha lost her virginity to Rupert Grayson, and has had on more than one time relations with him since then."

"The drama club guy?" Arnold raised a horrified eyebrow. Rupert Grayson was a punk, and wore heavy make-up, believing himself to be a second Marilyn Manson/Shakespeare, and was one of the more prominent drama club members due to his odd behaviour and his quirky habit of bursting into song at the oddest moments. He'd transferred to Walkerville High at the beginning of their freshman year, and although extremely good-looking and insightful, none of them could conceive the notion of serious, cynical, sarcastic and down-to-earth Keesha ever going out with Rupert Grayson, although they worked closely together for school events, since in alphabetical order, their surnames were together and were often paired up.

The idea itself went against the law of nature, it seemed to them. Arnold even shuddered.

Suddenly there was a yell, and everyone heard from Ralphie's tent, his voice yelling, "The Friz went to Woodstock! It doesn't matter how old she was, she could have used the bus to go back!"

"What on earth?" Dorothy Ann said. Everyone ran towards the direction of Ralphie's tent, and they reach the tent the same time as Keesha and Phoebe, who ran out of their tent. Questions poured forth from everyone at the same time.

"Wanda, what the hell?"

"What's that smell?"

"Oh my God, Wanda, what did you do to Ralphie?"

"_It's alcohol_!" Dorothy Ann cried, recognising the smell.

"Wanda Li, _what did you do_?" Phoebe turned to Wanda, who wore now an anguished expression on her face.

"I swear, I didn't do anything!" Wanda moaned. "At least I didn't mean to. I fell asleep, and Ralphie woke me up asking for water and I didn't pay attention, I just gave him the flask - I didn't realise it had alcohol in it, I was so tired from my nap and -"

"You got him flat drunk," Carlos concluded. "There must have been at least two litres of booze there and his throat was parched so he took it all in one gulp. And now he's flat drunk."

"He wasn't supposed to bring booze!" Arnold cried in dismay.

"He's a teenage boy! We should know better!" Tim said.

"Did you bring any alcohol?" Keesha asked him.

"Well, no," Tim admitted.

In the meantime, Ralphie had sat up and sauntered (or tried to, since his sense of balance was off) to Phoebe, the flask in his hand. "Think about the kinky places we could make out in using this PortaShrinker I stole from her," he said, trying to be seductive, evidently mistaking the flask of what-was-supposed-to-be-water-but-was-actually-alcohol for the PortaShrinker that Ms. Frizzle, their third grade teacher whom they had not spoken to in years, used to have.

Phoebe, always the shy one, blushed to the roots of her hair. "You stay away from her, Ralphie Tennelli. You're drunk," Arnold said, cutting in between the two. Ralphie's face fell.

"Are you one of those censor people? Who always stop people from doing their own thing?" Ralphie asked, peering closely into Arnold's eyes, as if he was short-sighted. Carlos groaned. He didn't realise that Ralphie was so drunk that he couldn't recognise his close friends. This boded no good for the gang. But, as always, Carlos (being Carlos), knowing something funny was going to happen, took out his cellphone and began recording what would happen next (he would later burn it on CD - "For posterity," he defended himself, although really it was for blackmail). "Are you? Huh? Because I don't give a damn for censors. In fact, as I always say, fuck the censors! I say we do what we want! What do you say, you guys? Shall I beat up this constricting piece of -"

Phoebe whispered to Keesha, "He never said that before. About effing the censors."

"It's better than seeing a drunken Ralphie sing/butcher songs from Disney movies, any day," the other girl replied, but the whisper was audible enough for Ralphie to hear.

"_Disney movies_? I _love _Disney movies," he announced grandly. Tim tried not to laugh outright, as Ralphie began to sing a song from _Cinderella_, "_Sing, sing nightingale. Sing, sing nightingale. AhAHahAH__**AH**__ah__**ah**__ahAH,"_ in a terribly off-pitched aria. Dorothy Ann covered her ears, and scrunched her face in a weird expression. She did not know whether to laugh or scream at the pain Ralphie was inflicting on her ear drums. Carlos made motions to her to get her a carton of milk from his tent, which she gratefully did, because she couldn't endure the pain (or the laughter welling up in her) and needed to get out, but did not feel it right to leave, until Carlos' request allowed her to do so.

"The scariest thing I ever saw was Ms. Frizzle and Mr. Seedplot going at it in the teacher's lounge. But that was until I heard Ralphie singing _Sing Sing Nightingale_," Wanda shook her head.

"The scariest thing _I _saw was a tattoo on Keesha's butt with the letter F, and Carlos said it was because of Ms. Frizzle, because her last name begins with F," Arnold whispered back.

"Idiot! F for _Franklin_, Keesha's last name, and it's on top of a K for Keesha! And she got that tattoo in 7th grade, when she broke up with what's-his-name? The idiot transfer student. So that she remembers she's her own property."

Not that anyone remembered who the transfer student was, nor what was the significance of 'being your own property was'. They probably weren't even listening to Wanda - Ralphie was too loud - or they would have known there was no way to get a tattoo before you were 16 in any state. But then again, Keesha often had connections, and it was probably best not to ask _how_.

"Oh, so that was what that weird flower was," Arnold mused, which was probably the only part he heard, due to Ralphie's incessant singing (shrieking?). Dorothy Ann gave Carlos the carton of milk, having arrived back in time to hear about Keesha's butt too. She blushed, but pretended not to hear. Carlos, on the other hand had a gulp of milk from the milk carton.

"Can we _please_ stop talking about Keesha's butt now?" Phoebe asked, uncomfortable. Carlos went into spasms - probably because the whole conversation was hilarious to him, and he was trying not to laugh but ended up coughing instead to prevent milk from spurting forth. Milk spurted out of his nose and he began coughing and heaving, much to everyone's (except Ralphie's) alarm. Ralphie began singing, "_High ho, high ho, to home from work we go_," as if he were one of the dwarves from _Snow White_.

For once, attention was off the drunken Ralphie and the spotlight was unfavourably on Carlos. "Carlos, are you OK?" Dorothy Ann asked.

"Is he choking? What do we do now? The Heimlich manoeuvre?"

Dorothy Ann performed said manoeuvre. Carlos finally stopped.

"Are you all right, Carlos?" Dorothy Ann asked worriedly.

"You really had us worried over there," Phoebe added, softly.

But the first thing that came out of Carlos' mouth was -

"I spurted milk out of my nose!"

Dorothy Ann didn't know whether to be disgusted or relieved. Everyone else raised a quizzical eyebrow. But when Carlos wasn't trying his darndest to be charming, well, that was how Carlos was.

"Great," Keesha muttered. "Just great. We have a drunk Ralphie, a Carlos who is idiotic when he is post-spasmic, my butt on display, Dorothy Ann being naively idiotic, Wanda as the worst nurse ever, Tim doing nothing -"

"Hey, aren't I the moody and depressed one?" Arnold said, trying to lighten Keesha up.

"You are, and I know in a few minutes you're going to wish you stayed at home this weekend."

"Well, I couldn't abandon my friends in their time of need. And I guess this counts as a time of need," Arnold looked around him, cringing at the chaotic sight in front of him: Ralphie, still as drunk as ever, beginning to sing _Ever Ever After_ from _Enchanted_, Keesha complaining to no end, Phoebe, looking scared and confused, and wishing for a way out of this madness, Tim as indolent as ever, drawing quietly, Wanda, alternating between guilt for Ralphie's situation and cynicism, Carlos quietly blinking his eyes many times, before coming up with some lame jokes, a distraught Dorothy Ann who he supposed was distraught because she didn't know a way to end this idiocy (he supposed there was no books that explained how to right a camping trip gone wrong, including a friend drunk, another as good as drunk as he didn't handle spasms well, a friend so moody and cynical that her complaints made everything unbearable, an indolent friend ignoring the reality of the painful picture of chaos in front of him and only concerned with sketching it, a friend who was either wailing with guilt or staring disgustedly at the whole picture they made, a scared friend who wished she had the power to make everything better - and probably did - although she was too afraid to use that power; the list was endless).

"But you're right. I _am _beginning to wish I stayed at home for the weekend -" Arnold said, before he caught sight of Carlos' phone. He picked it up, ready to return it to Carlos, but realised Carlos had been recording the whole time. He gave a wicked grin, uncharacteristic of himself. "Although, on second thought, I'm glad I didn't." He handed the phone to Wanda, who stopped her schizophrenic wailing and gave a grin so characteristic of her mischievous behaviour.

"For posterity," he ended, and the three of them - Arnold himself, together with Keesha and Wanda - gleefully observed the continuing chaos, which didn't seem to end anytime soon. Although Arnold and Keesha, who had a righteous streak, began to try and subdue the chaos, which failed, and left Wanda to enjoy the spectacle she had caused, although she did feel a twinge of guilt again soon afterwards. This camping trip had only lasted four hours before everything went wrong, and she tried now to help the others, although she doubted anything would go right now, since everything could get much worse.

Suffice to say, I need not go into further details of what happened from then until the end of the camping trip, because, as we all know, by the end of the trip, everyone was exhausted, Ralphie the most so, as he had also a hangover to deal with besides a nasty stomach pain, and they had no coffee to ease the pain for Ralphie's hangover, nor any Tylenol. They decided not to go camping again -

At least anytime soon. Because when Carlos picked up his phone, he ended the recording and then put it onto Ralphie's computer, and managed to burn CDs for them all. And though it was embarrassing, it was hilarious, and everyone kept it - "For posterity," they all said, though really it was to make fun and blackmail each other with their stupidity, and as a moral _never_ to let Ralphie bring alcohol to a camping trip and never let Carlos drink milk when something funny/worrying happen.

Although the next time it was _Wanda_ who brought alcohol, and _Dorothy Ann_ who spurted milk out of her nose. But that's another story.

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_**Fin**_

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**Author's Note:** This is a response to Ringtailer720's fanfic challenge.

Set II: (The Slightly Risque Challenge)

1 "(Bleep) the censors! I say we do what we want!"

2 "I bet she was on acid...or crack...or some other mind-altering drug."

3 "Why is humanity so dumb?"

4 "Aren't I the moody and depressed one?"

5 "I spurted milk out of my nose!"

6 "The Friz went to Woodstock! It doesn't matter how old she was, she could have used the bus to go back!"

7 "When did you get that tattoo on your butt?"

8 "Suck on that!"

9 "It's better than seeing a drunken Ralphie sing/butcher songs from Disney movies."

10 "How many licks does it take to get to the center--"

11 "The scariest thing I ever saw was Ms. Frizzle and Mr. Seedplot going at it in the teacher's lounge."

12 "It tastes like cat. Chocolate-covered--...(Name), don't eat it!"

13 "That's it! I've had it with these phone calls!"

14 "Say anything and I'll rip out your intestines with this spatula."

15 "Think about the kinky places we could make out in using this PortaShrinker I stole from her."

I know it was supposed to be a sequel to One More Field Trip, but that was hard and weird to write so I took the easy way out. Sue me, if you have a case.


End file.
